“My wife went shopping the other day for a new doona and came home with a comforter,” reports Bryan O’Keefe of Kembla Heights. “I’m guessing the same marketing gurus were behind a dummy becoming a pacifier.”

“Geoff Turnbull’s creek-side cubby tale (C8) reminded me of our visit to Burra (a fascinating town) in South Australia,” says Anne Kirman of Wilton. “In the 1850s, some 1800 people lived in 600 dugouts excavated in the side of the Burra River. Sadly, flooding forced most of the occupants to leave, with only three dugouts surviving to the present day, albeit unoccupied. Life was tough back then.”

“In a makeshift room of a run-down old house in rural NSW, I watch as my son has two dental wires replaced,” writes Debbie Knapman of Nubba. “A glue is being applied and needs to dry. For heat, a purple hairdryer is used, for water, a pink plastic spray bottle. When the yellowed autoclave machine becomes too noisy to speak over, it is intermittently turned off. I imagine I’m dreaming but just then, confirmation is torn from a carbon copy receipt book and handed to me. The year is 2025 and this is orthodontics in the country.”

“The Lone Ranger (C8) and Tonto were surrounded by tribesmen,” explains Duncan McRobert of Hawks Nest. “The Lone Ranger turned to Tonto ‘What should we do if the Indians attack?’ Tonto was quick to reply ‘What do you mean by we, white man?’”

John Ure of Mount Hutton recalls that “when I was a police detective at Toronto, Lake Macquarie in the 1970s, I would regularly assume the persona by declaring to my offsider: ‘Off to Toronto, pronto, Tonto’. Groans all round.”

You know, Granny was pretty sure that readers had had enough of radio serials back in April, with endless Blue Hills and Argonauts Club chat, then along came Anne McCarthy of Marrickville: “Lone Ranger reminiscences (C8) brought to mind after-school radio serials of the ’50s. These included Hopalong Cassidy and his horse Topper, and Tom Corbett, Space Cadet, a trainee at the Space Academy hoping to become a Solar Guard on the spaceship Polaris. Do any other C8’ers share these memories?”

“Lone Ranger fan Mickey Pragnell will no doubt remember the fastest mouse in Mexico,” says George Manojlovic of Mangerton. “His name was Speedy Gonzales and I think he ran a carpet business called Arriba Underlay.”

Column8@smh.com.au

No attachments, please.

Include name, suburb and daytime phone.